


You'll meet a tall dark stranger

by Ler



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/M, I love all AC Aus, I should not be allowed to write for any of them, Templar boyband makes a cameo, all I can do is fluff and smut them up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:25:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ler/pseuds/Ler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(or four, and some of them will be very blond)</p><p>In which Ziio punches somebody in the face, gets offered fish crackers and refuses to drink rum with pirates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll meet a tall dark stranger

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ты встретишь высокого темноволосого незнакомца](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938905) by [Beckett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckett/pseuds/Beckett)



> Dear sannam, I'm terribly sorry.

**I.** **10$ and a beer**

 

In retrospect, her aunt was probably right and Ziio had a temper management problem. But in her defense, when you grow up in a big family with more cousins then you could count, and some or them remain little shits till the tender age of sixteen, and can’t keep their hands out your stuff, you sort of have an excuse to shout that you will murder them slowly if they even think about stepping into your room. But that’s family, and it always comes with a little bit of unfulfilled homicide.

 

But in this particular case, when her hands squeezed the pool cue on a verge of breaking it, killing somebody would probably cost her a ban from the student bar, and that was most unwanted, so she gritted her teeth and pretended that her ass was not discussed. Loudly.

 

The asshole, so interested in it, was one Tom Hickey, somewhat famous around campus for the achievement of outdrinking everyone on the freshman picnic last year, and this year, and all the times in between. In fact, it seemed, he was drinking constantly, and spend his lectures snoring – the only reason why he wasn’t kicked out yet was that he was ridiculously good at punching people, both in the boxing ring and beyond it.

 

She send one long hard stare in the direction of the ‘commotion’ table, but not at Hickey, since glaring at Hickey was as useless, as using more them five words in a sentence while talking to him. Her glare was directed as one Will Johnson, an acquaintance, who smiled at her apologetically.

 

“Anyway, talking about asses,” Hickey hickuped, “you need to get laid.”

 

The one who needed to get laid was sitting with his back to her, dark hair, broad shoulders, and those fine clothes that reminded her of preppy little douchebags from private schools with trust funds. At the moment, he was sitting with his hand exasperatedly pressed to his eyes. That, and one Charles Lee, who had something personal against her whole racial heritage altogether, and who was now staring at her like she was polluting his air by her mere presence in the same room, which once again brought her to a conclusion that Johnson had a worst taste in friends.

 

“Carefull, Hickey. She might break the cue over your head.”

“Shit, Charlie, wasn’t she the bird, who gave you that black eye a month ago?”

 

She was.

That didn’t make them less of a click of privileged British assholes with one drunken Irish asshole.

 

“I think what Tom was meant to say is that all work and no play makes you a dull boy, Haytham.”

 

There was a groan, followed by a sigh, followed by a smooth British – _of_ _course_ – baritone:

“Not you too, William.” A hand pulled away from the face, and made a gesture, more suited for the Buckingham palace, than a bar with sticky floors and a faint smell of tequila overconsumption. “I told you, I don’t really see an incentive to waste my time on subpar conversations with women of questionable intelligence.”

Now, and it came in a wave of comforting realization that she was right, she remembered, where she heard his name before. Haytham Kenway was the rising star of the campus. Unlike Hickey, he had an academic scholarship, not to mention, was the running candidate for the student body president, and was expected to achieve many great things, like become an actual president, start a human colony on Mars and find a cure for common cold. Any information about his personal life was unaccessable, but it was rumored, that his father was James Bond. That, and he was relatively good-looking. Not that she thought so.

 

“Wait,” Tom made a comeback, “you _talk_ to them?”

“Dear God, Hickey, shut the hell up.”

“Charlie, you wanna go?..”

 

It would have ended right there, and Ziio would have finished the game and went home and never though twice about men, who spoke like they watched too much Downton Abbey, but more beer arrived, and that caught Hickey’s attention. He dug into his pockets and pulled out a ten dollar bill, which has seen better days as did his jeans. He slammed it on the table.

 

“Ten bucks says you can’t go there and snog her.”

 

And “her”, as Ziio suddenly understood, missing the shot completely and drawing a blue line on the green surface, was actually _her_.

 

There was a silence, with a hypothetical “what” hanging in the air, because, she hoped, some of them were brought up better then that. Unfortunately, Hickey was not one of them.

 

“What? It’s an incentive.”

 

She could feel Johnson’s eyes on her back, as he hissed: “Thomas, put the money away.”

 

“Bloody hell, stop pussing out. What is she going to do, beat the crap out of you? Don’t worry, I’ll protect all your pretty faces. Except for Charlie, it’s too late for him now.”

 

“Don’t encourage her,” just as a charm, Lee leaned his head so that she could hear him better. “She is violent. Comes with being a savage...”

 

Maybe she did have anger management problems.

 

She turned.

Hickey greeted her with a wasted smile and a joyous “Charlie, hide your face, here she comes.”

She came to table.

“Ziio,” started William, trying to be the most well-mannered one, “it’s just a joke-“

 

“ **Oh look** what do we have here,” she picked up a note from the table and turned it in her fingers. “I usually expect at least a dinner, but guess what, I have a fit of unexplained generosity today.” She tucked the note in her pants.

 

“That’s for me.”

 

In hindsight, she probably should have been drunk for the next part. But she wasn’t.

The next part was her pulling the illustrious Haytham Kenway by his stupid ponytail and kissing him.

 

The brilliant Kenway froze. She expected him to unfreeze at some point, because she took her time, but he didn’t. He was the same level of stupefied, before her tongue got into his mouth, after it got out, and even when she left a “goodbye” nib’n’peck on his lower lip.

 

“Holy shit,” commented Hickey.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she replied. “And this one is on the house.”

After which she did punch Hickey in the face and walked away, raising her hand when Johnson tried to mutter some sort of an apology.

 

An hour later she got home and realized that she kissed Haytham Goddamn Kenway.

A week later Kenway was transferred into her sociology class.

Three weeks later they were assigned to do a project together.

They shared a handshake and pretended they never met each other before.

 

_[The front door slammed._

_“I’m in the kitchen, lad!” His father poked his head through the doorway. “How was it? Are you drunk? We have beer in the freezer, if you want so-“_

_“Father, I’m going to bed.”_

_Flopping on the covers, for the first time in his adult life, Haytham Kenway looked at the ceiling, smiled like an idiot and said “Holy shit indeed”.]_

 

 

**II.** **Not scones, but fish crackers**

 

First time Ziio meets her future father-in-law, she sits in the middle of a living room on a couch, shaped like a whale, with an actual harpoon popped against the wall, an aquarium (huge thing, sunken ship, bubbling treasure chest, bright orange clown-fish and that striped one no one remembers the name of), “The deadliest catch” recording on DVR, and wonders, why is she still here. The answer is a person, who pushes the kitchen door with his hip, and puts a tray with what looks like the props stolen from the film set of the Pirates of the Caribbean on a coffee table made out of a glass circle with a steering wheel under it, and tries not to look at her, when he says:

 

“Sorry, we are out of clean mugs.”

“Right,” she replies, trying to figure out, which one of the barnacles is the handle.

 

He pours her tea from a matching teapot. His face portrays that he might be sorry not only for the tea set, but for his whole life in general.

 

He makes a mean cup of tea though.

“I would have offered you scones,” he continues, his unexplainable British accent somehow amplifying the dread of the situation, “but it appears, that we also only have fish crackers available.”

 

“I see,” she says, and wonders, if this is really some sort of a test, and if she is passing it, and where exactly is the secret doorway out of the test zone. “So about that sociology project...”

 

The change is almost immediate. The pathetic hunch straightens into a fine posture, features lighting up, eyes finally meeting hers since before they stepped through the front door. She hides her smile in a cup with a ceramic tentacle, as he pulls out all his books and notes, and starts talking quickly, “I was wondering”, one hand waving around in an intelligent sort of manner, while the other flips open a notebook packed with perfect lines of tiny scribbles, “if you could find real-life examples, because I can prepare the theory part“, and at this particular moment Ziio gets a theory of her own: she may in fact have a crush of this huge nerd with a magnificent jawline.

 

She wants to say that yes, she can look through some published essays by tomorrow, and sure, she knows how to use Powerpoint, and of course, she can stay over on Friday so that they could shape this up for Monday, but the door on the right opens, and something staggers out.

 

Something is a man in his probably forties, a mop of blond hair, and a tired handsome face, covered in scars, who takes two steps into a living room, yawning loudly, before setting eyes on Haytham, who, in return, freezes half-way through his monologue about the research papers of some university, and stares back, genuinely panicking.

At this point in time Ziio doesn’t know anything about Edward Kenway, since her project partner manages to avoid the whole topic of his family like fire, so she makes assumptions, based on the initial reactions, and becomes very concerned. She can smell alcohol from across the room, his rumpled t-shirt has Spongebob on it, the facial expression, created out of scars and drowsy eyes is simply menacing, and Haytham’s whole posture is slowly turning into one of a runner in a low start.

 

She asks herself, if maybe she should leave. Like right that moment.

 

And then the man stares at her incredulously for another moment, and his lips stretch into an open incredibly charismatic smile.

“Hello, pretty lady,” he waves at her, and his words have this e-ing tint to them, “are you really here, or my concussion in worse then I thought?”

“Hello,” Ziio waves back.

Haytham makes a sound. Then he clears his throat, and repeats.

“ZiiothisismyFather,” and, after a pause of comprehension, add, “Why do you have a concussion?”

Haytham’s father raises his shoulders, in a shit-happens kinda way. “Got a bottle broken on my head last night. Sorry for the smell, don’t think I managed to wash it all out this morning.” He makes a few stretches, shoulders popping. “Lovely lady, I suggest you stay for dinner, we are having house special!”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Great!” He pushes the kitchen door. “Dinner at five. I see you already have tea. Would you like some fish cra-”

“Dad, we’ll be studying in my room,” Haytham mutters quickly, and miraculously ushers all of her with everything she has (and she will not admit that for a brief moment, when his hand lands on the small of her back, she gets goosebumps, because his palm is wide and warm, and very gentle, and this may be the first time he ever touched her anywhere, save for that handshake and that one time that will not be mentioned) behind another door.

 

And while he stands, waiting, ear pressed to the wood, she looks around, taking in a plain narrow bed, plain walls, plain table with plain chair by it, and a bunch of shelves on a verge of breaking from alphabetically stacked books on them. She looks back at him. And he looks lost.

“Sorry about that. Sometimes he gets a bit...” He waves his hand again, but it’s _different_. “...too weird.” His eyes meet hers. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

 

And she finally _gets_ it.

 

 _[“Blacky, there is a girl in my house. And she is_ so fine _.”_

_For a moment, Teach wonders why he still picks up the phone._

_“I’m very glad for you. Have a nice time.”_

_“You don’t get it,” an excited whisper hisses in the mic. “Haytham brought home a_ girl _.”_

_“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital? We had worse, but you never know with these bottles...”_

_“I’m serious. Come over, she is still here. They are_ studying _.”_

_“Now listen to me: you leave those kids alone. Even if they are just studying. And don’t start with you old-time stories, you hear me? Ed?”]_

 

**III.** **Tobacco & Rum**

 

This comes after the project, after they make up, after they go out for a coffee. She even accepts Johnson’s apology for that thing that never happened, and they have coffee all three of them, telling stories about the whale couch – because Johnson in fact has a really good taste in friends, especially best friends – and the fish crackers and even the harpoon, and Haytham pretends he is not a bit embarrassed by his father.

It’s after she finds out that Edward is a bartender, who works at night, and worked at night for a very long time, getting fired a lot, but always getting back to his feet, and even after Haytham explains to her that “house special” is actually the mix of everything that is left in the fridge, because that’s what you get when money runs low by the end of the month, and someone forbids Haytham to get a job, because Haytham has to enjoy being young and study and get into a good university and do what he likes.

They already compared families, his small one to her huge one, with her grandmother giving him a look-over which made him very uncomfortable, with her younger cousins piling on top of him, and shouting, that Ziio has a boyfriend, and her promising them a slow and painful death, unless they stop barging into her room ~~and ruining all the moments~~.

They also went to the movies a few times, and fought off a muggler, and tried to stop Haytham’s knuckles from bleeding, while sitting on the bench in the park at 1AM in the morning, because his father would have a fit, and Haytham has his own impulsive moments.

 

It’s even after Ziio realizes, that from time to time she might need to be the man in this relationship, and just kiss him already, because otherwise they would both get old and wrinkly before he decides to make a move, because he is a _good boy_. And because he is a _good man_ , when he – on a completely unrelated note - tells her that his father took extra shifts for the weekends, she replies, that she’ll bring her toothbrush. _And condoms_ , she adds, when he raises his infamous quizzical eyebrow. And after a pause, he says: _Oh. Right_.

 

“Let me guess,” she mutters, tired, happy, with her nose pressed somewhere behind his ear, and his fingers slowly combing through her unbraided hair. “That glowing toilet seat is the greatest thing your father ever bought.”

He laughs, sound rolling sleepily in his chest. “That was exactly what he said.”

It’s warm, and almost comfortable (not because of what they did, but rather how they did it), and they kiss again, lips dry, bruised, and now, rather perfect.

“I have a feeling, that your father used to be a pirate,” she draws lines with her finger on his abs, but he stops her, twining their fingers together.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m pretty sure he was in the navy with uncle Teach. When I was younger, they used to tell me stories,” he yawns, “about islands in the Pacific, and the ice plains of the Antarctic, and the red boats of Asia.”

“Well, aren’t you daddy’s little sea urchin,” she teases, crawling over him to the edge of the bed (which was pretty narrow to begin with, but now is also extremely unstable).

“Where are you going?”

“Water. I’m also taking your shirt. Have you seen my underwear?”

“Have you looked under the bed?”

She stops her search for a moment, watching him turn on his side face to the wall.

“You are such a typical man, you know that?” She notices her underwear on the table lamp. “When I get back, you’d better not be taking up this whole bed, or I will have to sleep on top of you, and I’ll drool all over you, and it will not be very sexually attractive, unless you’re into that. Which is weird.”

“Oh, the horror,” he replies into the pillow, and she pinches him through the cover for being too cocky.

 

The smell appears when she pats, barefoot, through the living room. She doesn’t recognize it at first, but as she opens the kitchen door and turns on the light, Edward and some another guy just sit there, ice clacking in their glasses and a cigarette smoking in an ashtray.

“She _is_ quite a catch,” notes the other guy.

“And you must be the infamous uncle Teach,” she replies, and beelines to the sink, buttoning up Haytham’s shirt, which was made without taking into consideration her breasts or hips. “Edward, I heard you had work this weekend.”

“I got fired,” he replies, perfectly content. “Want a drink? We are celebrating.”

Ziio quickly feels up a glass. “Thanks, I got water. What’s the occasion?“

“Your sex.”

She chokes.

“Dear God. Uhm. We broke the bed.”

“We heard.”

She remembers, vividly, the moment the bed broke and what sort of noises she was making. She feels her cheeks turning the color of her lovely lacy panties. For the occasion.

“Sweetheart, relax,” Teach combs down his long black beard. “It was a pretty old bed. He grew out of it anyway.”

“To growing up,” Edward raises his glass.

“To growing up. That reminds me of that time in Syracuse when you did the thing...” they drink.

Ziio stares at them, two men of age, perfectly fine with the fact that she is standing half-naked at three in the morning in the kitchen. She doesn’t seem to mind in return.

“Alright,” she rinses the glass and sets it to dry. “I’m going to bed. Just don’t get too drunk and start singing sea shanties. He needs some sleep.”

She is almost out of the door, when Edward speaks again: “Don’t tell him, would you?”

“Tell him what? You are at work anyway, aren’t you?”

“Smart girl,” he smiles back.

 

_[“That’s one big baby,” Teach states quite a bit of time (couple of years, actually) later._

_“I know, right?” Edward seems to be absolutely ecstatic, turning the little cooing brown-eyed person in all directions. “He was born at four kilos. And cute as a button.”_

_“I wish he would stop pulling my beard.”_

_“Nah, you are pretty screwed.”_

_“Allow me to refresh your memory: ‘Blacky, he won’t stop screaming, what do I do, Blacky, I don’t think this is not supposed to look like that, Blacky, can you get him to the doctor, I have a shift’?”_

_“Excuse me, one moment,” Edward turns the child the right side up, and sits him in the cradle of his arms. “This might take a spell, but we would like to make bubbles of indignation at you.”]_

 

**IV.** **Coffee**

 

Haytham doesn't become a president, or an astronaut, or a medical researcher. He becomes a writer. But that doesn't matter. Not because he is a damn good writer, but because he is her Haytham. 

 

«Your publisher called,» she enters the kitchen. It's still early, and she stops by to glide her hand through his salt'n'pepper hair.

Haytham flips the newspaper. «Did you tell him the answer is 'no'?»

«Haytham-»

«I'm not going on another signing tour. Twice in six months? He is not the brightest lad, but this is simply moronic».

«You are being grouchy». She pulls on his ponytail slightly and leaves a kiss on his forehead. “The kid is trying his best.”

She waits for him to say that the young man, recently appointed as his curator in the publishing house, is not trying hard enough, but he doesn’t. Ziio takes it as a personal victory.

 

The doorbell rings. When she pulls the handle, she sees a wide chest, and two thick strong arms wrap around her and raise her off the floor, big duffle-bag falling in the corridor.

“Hi, Ista,” says her child, who is starting to reach the size of a grizzly bear. “Where is dad?”

“In the kitchen,” she wraps her arms around his shoulders, or at least tries to. “How was your trip with grandpa?”

He plops her down, pulling off his shoes, and closing the door.

“Pretty amazing. We did a full tour of the Caribbean, and there are some places there that are so badass,” he shuffles towards the kitchen; someone still has to try and fix that horrible posture. “I’ll show you the pictures, if you make some coffee. There is also a video of him doing pirate speak with his welsh accent and it’s bloody hilarious.”

Haytham stands up, and he is thinner and shorter then his son now, but that doesn’t stop him from giving an all-over judging look, before being swept up in a bone-crushing hug.

“Dear Lord, what has he been feeding you?”

“House special.”

“Your grandfather is an awful influence on you. And your mother. And this whole family.”

“So I probably shouldn’t tell you about that crate of Jamaican rum we smuggled...”

“Connor!”

“I almost forgot, I got you things,” the child storms out of the kitchen back into the hallway, floor creaking under his weight.

“I have no control of this family,” her husband tells her. She wraps her arm around his waist.

“I think I might owe Hickey an apology,” she leans on his shoulder and kisses his neck.

“What for?”

“For that tenner I took. And a broken nose.”

He looks down on her, confused. Then his eyebrows raise.

“ _Oh_. _Right_ ,” his hand squeezes her shoulder. “No, he deserved that. But I swear, if I find out that Connor has a tattoo as well, there is going to be blood.”

Yes, she thinks. There will. But she can deal with it later.

 

_["What the hell is this?"_

_"It's a bear."_

_"Your father is going to flip."_ _]_


End file.
